Medical pot facility rumours are false

Rumours of a medical marijuana (MM) production facility opening in Yorkton are, at the very least, premature. According to Health Canada, if someone is setting up the old Coop creamery on York Road for that purpose, they have yet to be approved for a licence.

Since the new Marihuana for Medical Purposes Regulations (MMPR) came into effect in April restricting MM cultivation to select commercial producers, the federal government has issued 20 licences, two in Saskatchewan. Health Canada will not divulge where marijuana production facilities are located, but does publish the names of the licence owners on its website.

Both Saskatchewan licences belong to Prairie Plant Systems (PPS) in Saskatoon.

Prairie Plant Systems is a biotechnology company that "incorporates innovative expertise and new plant biotechnologies into deliverable plant-based systems for biopharmaceutical, agricultural and environmental market applications," according to the company's website.

When PPS decided to get into the medical pot business it spun off Cannimed as the distribution company to deal with that one aspect of the business, explained Brent Zettle, president and CEO.

He was unequivocal about the Yorkton rumours.

"We do not have an operation in Yorkton," he said.

He did note, however, that there are probably numerous small-scale grow-ops all around the area.

Under the old Medical Marihuana Access Regulations (MMAR) there were some 34,000 people licenced to grow pot for their own use in Canada. The owners of those licences are, of course, protected under health privacy legislation.

All of those operations were supposed to be shut down April 1, but a federal court judge in British Columbia granted existing growers an injunction to continue the practice while a constitutional challenge of the MMPR makes its way through the justice system.

The government says growing marijuana at home poses hazards including mould, fire, toxic chemicals and the threat of home invasion by criminals. It also does not like the fact that some growers over-produce and divert those drugs to the recreational pot black market.

The group of users bringing the Charter challenge argue the new regulations deny patients a safe, affordable supply of their medication. Some have even said they will go back to buying the product illegally.

The federal government has asked the Court of Appeals to overturn the injunction.